Opinion C Raja Mohan writes: The US can walk, whistle and chew gum at the same time

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 led to a rallying effect in Europe. Two traditionally neutral nations, Finland and Sweden, joined NATO and Europe doubled down to back Ukraine. Over the last two years, the US has made impressive gains in Asia. These include encouraging Japan to ramp up its defence expenditure to counter China, promoting normalisation of ties between Tokyo and Seoul, renewing defence cooperation with the Philippines, signing a strategic partnership agreement with Communist Vietnam, unveiling the AUKUS partnership with Australia and the UK, strengthening the Quad, and enhancing bilateral ties with India. Above all, the US has expanded its military support for Taiwan and is raising the costs of a potential Chinese invasion.

Yet, the outbreak of unprecedented violence in Israel and Gaza and the danger of a wider war in the Middle East has renewed concerns about the US’s capacity to prevail in all three theatres. Reinforcing these concerns has been the fraying domestic consensus on foreign policy. Well before the October 7 terror attack on Israel, the US Congress dropped the aid package to Ukraine. Even as Ukraine’s counter-offensive against Russian occupation stalls, a major section of the Republican Party has ranged itself against unending military support to Ukraine. An important section of the US foreign policy establishment has argued that the US should focus on countering China rather than wasting its energies in Ukraine. It insists that Europeans should take greater responsibility to counter the Russian invasion of Ukraine. While there is a strong bipartisan political consensus in favour of defending Israel, some question Washington’s uncritical support for Tel Aviv. Meanwhile, the prospects that Donald Trump might win presidency again has generated possibilities for a return to isolation.

Several factors, however, suggest it is unwise to underestimate the US’s strategic resilience. One is the importance of balancing the noisy US foreign policy debates about decline and isolationism against the Washington establishment’s enduring strength, demonstrated over the decades, to moderate the extreme domestic arguments and sustain the pursuit of essential US interests worldwide.

Second, the US decline tends to be overstated. The US share of the global GDP continues to be around 24 per cent. While it is true that the Western share of the GDP has declined, much of that reflects a substantive drop in Europe’s share. At the same time, it is easy to overstate China’s rise. The current slowdown in the Chinese economy suggests it will be a long while, if at all, before Beijing overtakes Washington in aggregate GDP.

On the military front, the US continues to spend more on defence than the next 10 countries combined, including China and India. None of the other powers can project military power in the manner the US does. As the crisis has unfolded in the Middle East, the US deployed two aircraft carriers in the eastern Mediterranean during the last few days.

On the diplomatic front too, the US has been able to insert itself directly and at the highest level in the Gaza war. While China and Russia have offered the usual bromides, Biden travelled there personally, pressed the Israelis to delay the ground invasion and pushed for humanitarian relief. The US has more leverage than the other major powers with both the Arabs and Israel. All that was not enough to produce peace, but there should be no doubt about who has the greater influence in shaping the regional landscape.

The structure of the great power conflict, too, favours Washington. Although Russia and China have gotten closer than before, both are eager to work out separate deals with the US. For Moscow and Beijing, it is a question of terms and not a matter of ideological principle. The US has domestic problems, and China and Russia have their own. The strong-man rule in Moscow and Beijing may mask those difficulties, but can’t hide them from the US.

As a distant power, secure behind two oceans, the US can always take a detached view of the balance of power in Europe and Asia. With minor tweaks in its policy, it can exploit the many contradictions among the major powers of Eurasia. The US demonstrated this in the 1970s when it took advantage of the tensions between the presumed Communist twins, China and Russia.

The greatest US advantage is its system of alliances that vastly outgun the coalitions that Russia and China have sought to construct. The Biden administration has made a conscious decision to look beyond its traditional alliances. By strengthening those who have a stake in defending themselves against China, the US has enhanced the Asian deterrent capabilities against Beijing. The Biden administration is also finessing its declared ideological framework — democracies versus autocracies. As the US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan put it in a just-published article in Foreign Affairs, the range of countries supporting Washington includes “those with diverse political systems”. “We will work with any country”, Sullivan adds, “prepared to stand up for the principles of the UN Charter”.

Sullivan’s formulation is not a “deviation” from the ideology of democracy promotion; he is reaffirming the deeply embedded realist tradition in US foreign policy. While the question of democratic values remains central to the US foreign policy discourse, Washington’s conduct of international relations has been pragmatic when it comes to its core interests.

Planners in Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran might bet that fanning multiple fires could trip up Washington. Promoting chaos might be an interesting strategy, but to use an old Marxist metric, the “correlation of forces” is still in favour of the US. While the challenges confronting the US are complex and demanding, Washington has the will, resources and room for much geopolitical manoeuvre.

The writer is a senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute, Delhi and a contributing editor on international affairs for The Indian Express